Archive for December, 2008

Thank goodness for the power outage or I would have made some pretty awful picks prior to UFC 92.

Two new champions were crowned as Rashad Evans defeated Forrest Griffin to become light heavyweight champion and Frank Mir stunned Antonio Minotauro Nogueira to become the interim heavyweight champion, setting up a rematch with Brock Lesnar to unify the titles.

Shane Nelson made up for a disappointing early exist on the most recent season of the Ultimate Fighter with a split-decision victory over George Roop on the finale show Saturday night in Las Vegas, earning the fighter from Hilo a cool 16 k.

It wasn’t easy for Nelson, who struggled against Roop’s reach advantage, but he nearly got his opponent in a rear naked choke in round 1 after taking his back and then again nearly stopped the fight with a guillotine choke in the second round.

The news wasn’t as good earlier in the week for Brandon Wolff, who lost to Ben Saunders by TKO in the first round. Wolff caught a shot to the groin early that temporarily stopped the fight. After the fight resumed, he ate repeated knees to the forehead while caught in Saunders’ clinch which eventually forced the ref to stop the fight.

I was actually quite interested to see if I’d get much response to the De La Hoya/Pacquiao fight, but unfortunately I’ll never know. I apologize to anyone that was wondering how to leave a comment on the blog item, but I guess something happened with the program used to leave comments. The tech guys are working on it, and we’ll try to have it back up and running ASAP.

If you missed the fight, which I did since I was at the UH/Cincinnati game, sounds like Pacquiao completely dominated the Golden Boy. I know the replay is being shown on HBO Saturday which I’ve already get set up on the DVR. If it’s as bad of a whuppin as I’ve read, maybe it’s time for the biggest draw in boxing to retire.

Also, two UFC events this week with local boys on the card. Brandon Wolff, who was involved in that unreal fight against Chad Reiner in X-1 in which he won the welterweight title, makes his UFC debut on Wednesday against undefeated Ben Saunders.

Then on Saturday, Shane Nelson fights on the Ultimate Fighter finale show against George Roop. Both fights will be shown on Spike TV.

UPDATE (12/11): Just to be clear, the UFC fight cards will be shown on Wed. and Sat., but it is not a sure thing that the fights involving local boys Brandon Wolff and Shane Nelson will be aired. They are prelim fights, so unless it’s a great fight, there’s a good chance they will not be shown.

I know this is a mixed martial arts blog, but just curious, does anybody care about the boxing fight Saturday night between the Golden Boy and Manny Pacquiao? Anyone planning on watching it or is everybody going to the UH game?